Baking & Snack - June 2018 - 29

OPERATIONS
La Mie Caline
La Mie Caline's central bakery's repertoire of classic and nouveau
baked goods fuels its presence in the French foodservice market.
by Dan Malovany
T
To experience a tasty morsel of joie de vivre, casually
stroll inside the La Mie Caline store in St. Jean de Monts,
a windswept seaside resort village nestled along the
Atlantic coast in west-central France.
Locals and tourists visiting the popular Vendée region receive a friendly greeting from bakers behind the
display cases teeming with French breads, classic croissants, elegant desserts and other delicate sweet goods.
La Mie Caline also offers an abounding array of freshly
made sandwiches, hot pizza, prepared foods and even
healthy salads that are touted as "Mie Chic" on the company's website.
To get to the engine that drives this nationwide chain,
however, take a 5-minute drive away from the nearby
beaches to the industrial section of town. That's also
where a sprawling 200,000-sq-ft central bakery turns out
millions of these morsels of joy each year for 238 La Mie
Caline outlets throughout the country.
To be more precise, the plant's 12 production lines
crank out 20 million baguettes, 16 million cookies, 12
million pain au chocolat, 8 million croissants and 1 million paninis annually, noted Stéphane Babarit, director
of R&D and industrial process.
And those are only the top sellers. Overall, Mr.
Babarit added that the versatile wholesale operation
produces 160 SKUs, which are delivered frozen to each
La Mie Caline franchisee two to three days a week. Parbaked breads, croissants and cookie dough are then
baked off in La Mie Caline's stores while some donuts
and desserts are finished on-premise and sold to more
than 40 million customers annually.
In addition to its repertoire of baked goods that
remain culturally true to the nation's culinary cuisine, Mr. Babarit pointed out that the bakery also
has expanded into organic and non-GMO-certified
offerings as its portfolio diversifies to meet the lat-
La Mie Caline's central
bakery supplies more
than 230 shops throughout France.
Photography by Sosland
Publishing Company
www.bakingandsnack.com / June 2018 Baking & Snack 29